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Remove Error Messages From a Printed Worksheet

BY STANLEY ZAROWIN

Please note: This item is from our archives and was published in 2009. It is provided for historical reference. The content may be out of date and links may no longer function.

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It doesn’t look very professional to print an Excel worksheet displaying those little error symbols (#DIV/0! or #N/A). And even though I know they are harmless, I don’t want to have to explain them to a client. How can I keep them off my printed sheets without having to go through the trouble of rewriting those unimportant formulas to eliminate them?

They print because Excel is defaulted to print them, but you can change the default easily. In Excel 2003, click on File, Page Setup and then on the Sheet tab (see screenshot below). In Excel 2007, display the Page Layout tab of the ribbon and then click the small icon at the lower-right of the Page Setup group to display this dialog box.

When you go to the dropdown list next to Cell errors as, notice you have several choices: displayed prints the error values as shown in the worksheet; hides the error values; – – replaces the error value with two dashes; and #N/A replaces all error values with #N/A.

And while you’re there, notice that you can adjust the defaults for how comments are displayed: (None), At end of sheet or As displayed on sheet (see screenshot below).